korea test fired one today. the underground blast registered with the same power as a magnitude 4.9 earthquake. it's the north's third nuclear test but by far the most powerful and the first since kim jung un took power. the u.n. security council in emergency meetings over it and aides say president obama address the defiance in tonight's state of the union address and that is just six hours away. lots to talk about today with former congressman joe sestak and served in the navy. welcome. >> good to be with you. thank you. >> let's talk start with hagel. by most accounts, chuck hagel had a shaky day at the confirmation hearing and surprising even some democrats with the answers and nonanswers. how do you think he did and do you ultimately expect he'll get confirmed? >> well, his presentation was spot on but that said i'm not always spot on when i do these

interviews either. it's whether the substance was there or not and there's three important issues clear out of that hearing and why he'll go through the nomination process successfully. first, he said he will defend israel. second, iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. and third, he is leader to transform our military, both for moving from southwest asia to the western pacific where 60% of the naichl forces are moved for a reason and second to transform our military to the new type of warfare where often based upon knowledge and the agility and speed to touch someone quickly. this also is necessary in the western pacific where china, for example, has 80 sub marines just to our 50. even john mccain who was quite critical in the hearing said this nomination should go through. >> right. >> well, yeah. on that point, it looks like the nomination will be confirmed.

the problem is it loonlgs like there's a filibuster or attempt at a filibuster and that means democrats and the white house have to come up with 60 votes to get this through. mccain has indicated to break a filibuster. looks like they would have the votes to do that. do you think we have sort of crossed a line here, bad precedent set for future cabinet nominations? never before has there been a filibuster of a defense secretary nominee. only two rejected since 1959. nobody tried to filibuster one in that time. are we creating bad precedent? >> why the senate has the right as a senator said who is supporting senator hagel to do a filibuster. i think it would set a bad precedent because as many people often very conservative have said in this particular case, the president has the right to have who he wants as cabinet secretary as long as there's nothing egregious in the

background. i think in this particular case it would be wrong. look. there are often claiming they want a filibuster and even though there's republican and democratic votes to actually have him approved because they feel strongly that the president did not reveal something and that somethingdy tans from the benghazi hearing, delaying the inevitable. they're going to come to an agreement and bring it to a successful vote. >> and admiral, let's move on to north korea. official state media is insisting that the reason for the test was in response to quote/unquote outrageous u.s. hostilities. do you think that's the case or merely kim jung un's way of announcing himself on the president's state of the union of the day? >> this is an in your face type of explosion because they're doing it at a very interesting time. there is a new prime minister in japan. there's a new south korea

president, a new president of china and frankly the day before the state of the union of the president of the united states taking over the second term. look. they are not there yet and have a distance to go before they'll be able to actually miniaturize a nuclear warhead and mate it to a missile with a missile to reach out to the united states but this is a dangerous situation. and the real key to this is china. they have to -- they're necessary in order to ratchet in an influencing north korea from not building another bomb, not doing proliferation and hopefully stopping them from having nuclear capability and has to be our goal but i think the united states has to be begin to approach this not just as north korea but how does removing forces in to the western pacific for a reason that our relationship with china has actually detier yatded and begin to use north korea where china doesn't want it to have a

nuclear weapon or the forces to have this be a way to begin to work together for something we both don't want and expand it to a competitive strategic relationship. >> so admiral, going deeper on what do we do now about north korea, we have sanctioned them just about as much as possible. we need china to go forward with a solution or pushing back against this. so, you know, when do we know they have gone too far and what do we do right now? >> you will see more sanctions imposed and not going to work because china is keeping open some of this material going in to north korea because it doesn't want to have an implosion of that society which then north korea -- south korea moves up north. so this is why we have to find out whether it's uranium usage or plutonium us and. we don't know where the uranium production plants are in the mountain and military options is not an option to try to do it now.

the only way to have this done is to be able to bring china in and to be able to use its influence of developing that economy, of making sure they stop. that is the key to this. look. in the last 12 years, u.s. has had 15 different negotiators as we flip between a stick and a carrot. our inconsistency is wrong. we have to bring together japan, south korea and china with us for one long-term consistent process. sanctions are one tool but china necessary but just not sufficient is the absolute key to this. we can have words and sanctions and will be done but that's the key is opening up its interest in to bringing about the stoppage of this nuclear program in north korea. there's no other option. >> right. admiral to switch gears a final time to the sequester and the potential cuts that the defense department could see as part of that if no deal is struck, you know, in your opinion, how impacted would the defense

department and our capabilities be by the sequester cuts if they were to take effect? because of how this is coming about the last couple of months, with the defense department actually spending as though we were going to have a resolution to its long-term expansion of last year's budget where they were expected to come up, they're spending at a higher rate than if they knew that we would not have an increase on the last yore's budget resolution to increase how much they would get this year. so it is going to have an impact on our readiness. see less ships sailing and a state of readiness to deploy. see the air force and the navy doing less types of sodies and readiness and while it's good for the front lines troops are degraded for those to deploy a year from now for example. all that said, this is washington not being adults and having a harmful effect. but that said, can defense be a

part of the shared sacrifice? absolutely. because we do know that warfare has changed. for example, i once put a $1 billion warship off the coast of y yemen and waiting to strike at terrorists. once a satellite sent us a picture. that coordination is not adequate. months later we flew, a period of time later, a drone over there and floated around waiting with its own camera to pickle off a missile and get that terrorist. we are still buying cold war systems and how we are doing it is absolutely going to have an unnecessary and quite frankly harmful impact. >> admiral, it dawns on me a year ago at the 2012 state of the union the president promised that we would not tolerate anymore syrian violence. we are at 60,000. assad is still in power. what do you expect him to say tonight about syria? >> i'm not sure you'll hear a word about syria but once we

found out over a period of time about six or eight or 12 months of who was who in the zoo over there, who were the people and which ones -- we should have been giving turkey and other elements over there that are helping those that were, let's say, less radical, more support. communications gear and we have given them some. we're listening in. second, we should have been giving them sufficient arms. not those to head to iraq but others and should have by now taken a stronger step in this sectarian violence there but i don't think you're going to hear a word about that tonight. focus on jobs and necessarily so. >> yep. okay. well, thank you. >> thank you for having me. next, where tonight's state of the union will rank in history. i feel kornacki facts coming on. here's a clue. vines anyone? >> weird. >> toure played some of the

favorite grammy songs on monday. my turn. mumford & sons. [ whispering ] i've always preferred the crème part of an oreo. [ whispering ] that's crazy, the cookie's the best part. crème. cookie. crème. stop yelling. you stop yelling. [ whispering ] both of you stop yelling. [ whispering ] i'm trying to read. [ male announcer ] choose your side at oreo.com.

we're still waiting from the senate armed services to vote for defense secretary. we'll keep an eye on that and let you know the results as soon as they happen. meantime, there are less than six hours until the state of the union and i know that because of the that countdown clock right there. it's a big day. >> helpful, helpful. >> this calls for a big spin

cycle, guys. so nbc's luke russert joins us as the honorary fifth cyclist. >> happy to be in the brady bunch graphics. this is the ann b. davis box. >> reserved that spot especially for you. so this is -- >> proud. >> first time in the spin cycle. so we'll let you lead off with your thoughts on the state of the union. what should the president do, what do you expect? >> reporter: i think the president is strongest in this idea of numbers, where he talks about how much things cost and what could be then purchased with them if certain legislative action goes forward. let's say the buffett rule, the one we heard him about in the campaign, assume that went forward. you get about $16.7 billion in revenue over a decade. the president should use stats like that to take it and talk about what he could get from that. infrastructure spending, grants and we know about one fourth of

the bridges in the united states structurally inefficient. a lot of them unsafe to drive on. the president can harp on that. the other thing is there's a lot of worry here about some moderate democrats on the hill because nancy pelosi and steny hoyer gone down the line of the united states does not have a spending problem. the president should i've heard say we do have a problem but we can do things in a bipartisan manner, whether it's i put forward a change cpi in exchange for some closing tax loopholes and for the president to be taken seriously by the country there should be acknowledgment of a spending problem going on throughout the united states coming to the long-term future entitlement programs. lastly, president obama well served to make the point on numbers. 11 million undocumented folks in

the country. what would it take to get them in line and have a negative birthrate like that in europe without this workforce here in the united states and many big business folks and republicans from texas and florida here in the capitol they want. that message probably can't go wrong on that especially for folks here on capitol hill. >> but luke, on your spending problem point, i thought according to republicans it's the president when's behind the sequester cuts, he is mr. austerity. that's not an issue. he's too kra cone idraconian. >> that's the thing they have been pushing forward left and right recently. sequester is a thing that originated with democrats and supported by republicans, looked forward as a way to go forward. john boehner said he got 98% 0 of what he wanted in the sequester. >> exactly. i have something i hope the president mentions tonight. he mentioned it in the victory speech after he won and in the

inaugural address which is election reform and so far cursory mentions to long lines and when you look at the totality of the system, when you look at the fact that minorities waited in line almost twice as long as white voters and ohio state university i believe studies show that 200,000 florida voters alone left and did not vote because the lines were so long. it is a disgrace the way that our system operates right now. it is discriminatory. it is inefficient. wasteful. wasting money on this basically pen and paper system. i would love to see the president get in to actual specifics and show to put some weight behind this because there's no issue more central to our democracy than being able to go and cast your ballot. >> which is something you and i did together this year. >> yes, we did. >> canceling out the votes. which was fun.

you know -- >> you didn't vote for obama? >> don't tell anybody. >> what? >> you know, in addition to the state of the union, i'm obviously also looking forward to the response and i'll get in to the duelling responses in my rant later. right now focusing on rubio. he's such a gifted communicator. he really is. that's not spin. that's not veneer. >> i agree with this. >> i'm hoping tonight that he puts on a positive message. let's be honest. this is not a response to the state of the union. this is already been written. it is basically designed to present an alternative view. i love that. so i actually -- one of my new rules for the gop is to stop describing messages in terms of obama. so i hope that it's less anti-obama and more positive, optimistic, i expect him to put in a lot of personal stories about success and growing up as an immigrant and i'm really

hoping for that young revitalizing optimistic message of what conservatism can do and bring for opportunity. >> optimistic message from the republicans, that would be new. i think about -- >> it wouldn't be new. it's new of a last few years. >> you're describing the rnc speech and had that potential to launch a career in recent years. this rebuttal, generally, only has the possibility to sink a career and the odds for rubio jindaling i think are high. >> i don't think so. he's a pretty -- >> following the president and in the middle of the chamber, the clapping and the grandeur and having rand paul following him as a corrective is a difficult thing for rubio in that whatever he wants to say he's going to have the real republican come behind him and say, no, this is what we really want. like he is a far right guy rubio

in a center left guy and increasingly center left country and how does he move to the middle with rand paul waiting to say this is what we really want? like when you go on a date and your mom's there. you're not really going to score with your mom right there. >> well, you are right. >> so many images in my head. >> mothers not withstanding is a tough format. >> no, no. expand on that analogy. >> that is -- that is toure's department. it is not been a launching pad. that's interesting to me waiting for somebody to come along and figure -- >> how to do that. >> what a big night the state of the union sort of has become and the big event on the political calendar, wasn't always this way. you look at the evolution of this and all the rituals that surround it. constitution basically says the president has to advise the congress from time to time about the state of the union and for the first two presidents they went in to the congress and gave speeches and then this long

stretch all the way through the taft presidency where the presidents just submitted a written message to congress. wilson brought back the speech and then radio and coolidge with the first radio address and then the first tv address and then the response and that came in the lbj years. when's funny is originally while there's period there where the response was just one person looking at the camera. as bad as -- >> looking slightly not at the camera. >> are we going to play this? >> i'm hoping. play the parties used to produce 30-minute infomercials. >> we were watching this before the program. >> omg! >> who is that? >> just lost 49 states to reagan. this is a party in disarray. they first offered the role of hosting the video -- not kidding. warren beatty. they said let's go with the -- and up and comer of bill

clinton. bill clinton took an enormous amount of heat of democrats after this video. this was a party flattened by reagan. on reagan's birthday, the night before the speech and clinton began with a warm tribute and happy birthday and democrats thought it was too complimentary. the video and then every democratic office holder in the country featured for 30 minutes. just -- >> their face inside of the -- >> map of the country. there's dukakis. cut to an interview. it was just -- >> it didn't sink bill clinton's career. >> and then three years later, the 45-minute speech and cheered and said -- he is proved -- that is the single greatest hope for bobby jindal to be president that bill clinton could have that video on the record and that speech in 1988 and survive it all and waiting to figure out what's the master form of the response. maybe rubio showing us something different tonight. doesn't do anything for anybody. >> that's why they call him the

comeback kid, i know. did you know that off the top of your head or look any of that up? >> i've watched that video once or twice or 23 times. >> impressive math, by the way. did you see that map? alaska is proportional. >> all blue. >> the alaska is proportion to the united states. they get upset. >> hawaii is not. >> all blue on the american map. >> good look for it. thank you so much for spinning with us. >> always a pleasure. they can care. straight ahead, our dr. j puts it in perspective. the address, the response and the promises, promises. jonathan allen's next in the guest spot. joann brewer and christie sterling of dallas created cute

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we can think of no one more appropriate for the guest spot on this big political day than

our resident washington expert dr. j, j-dog, politico's jonathan allen. boom! welcome. >> what's wrong with you today? >> thank you very much. i just want to say that the state of our union is alaska. >> nice. i like it. >> i'm always waiting far state to get named after that park. >> okay. >> they say state of the union is wrong. the president should pick a state -- >> congratulations, alaska. you are the state of our union. >> especially given that -- >> confetti falls. >> a pageant every year. we'll have a miss alaska. let me get to my questions, please. before this goes totally off the rails. >> as if it's not already there. >> i want to bring up the piece you have up in politico right now. you talk about obama's housing stunt a year ago. president obama and the state of the union promised a task force of prosecutors. to come after wall street firms on those broken mortgages and

you say it went nowhere and earned criticism even of liberal allies. additionally, glen kessler has some broken promises up on "the washington post." does anyone really pay attention to the promises? handed out in a state of the union and then go back and hold anyone to them or is this just for show anyway? >> sounds like politico and "the washington post" only ones doing that right now. people generally don't pay attention to what the president's proposals are. he's been talking about a national infrastructure bank for years now. >> right. >> i guarantee you hear about him wanting innovation and nobody really goes back and checks on most of these promises. obviously, the very big ones saying i intend to get an immigration bill done this year, that's something the people keep tabs on, gun control

legislation, sure. but a lot of times the presidents roll out the task forces and other programs to build and people really don't check up on what's going on with them. they may establish them and then let them die. this particular working group that we're talking about the residential mortgages working group has more words in the title over the past year and trying to build that up a little bit and end of the day it's reorganizing the government shares. >> well, and a lot of times it's phrased more as a call to action than as actual i'm going to do x and y and z and one that you point out was a promise made. but we talked about this yesterday. who is the speech really for? is this more for members of congress to send a signal to them where his negotiating position is or more for the public to rally them behind the causes that the president cares about? >> before television cameras

this was a speech for congress. since television cameras covering the event it's absolutely nothing to do with congress other than an opportunity for the president to lecture or scold members of congress sitting in front of him for the benefit of the public to help the public get angry at congress for what it is or isn't doing. the president in particular used it for that effect over the course of his presidency. >> to that point, the president will announce tonight that half of the troops still in afghanistan coming home. within a year. 34,000 men and women coming home from afghanistan. so political junkies know this. to mention this tonight is to make sure that the public who you just said is who the speech is for the public understands what the president's doing right now in afghanistan. right? >> yeah. that's something that's absolutely important to him. it's something that he has promised to do when he first came i to office. he ordered up a surge in afghanistan, something like although very different from the

iraq surge. but it was always his intention to draw back as fast as possible after trying to stabilize the region there. you know? there's different interpretations of exactly where we are along that course. obviously, there's still attacks going on in afghanistan but the president has long wanted to draw down from afghanistan and this then becomes part of the fulfillment of that promise he' made on the campaign trail and in office in the course of the presidency. >> the other story playing out in washington today is chuck hagel's nomination of defense secretary. there was a report of major garret saying it looked like susan collins is leaning toward voting yes and john mccain said he doesn't want to filibuster and looks like it will get through. if and when that happens, all the attention then will move to john brennan to be the cia director. we have the hearings last week and roughed up by a couple of senators.

overall i'm struck by the volume of outrage of congress which is sort of, you know, to date, left out of this entire decision make process about drones and sort of the, you know, talking -- getting any information about what's happened after the drones go out and kill people. are you surprised, jonathan, by the lack of sort of, you know, audible outrage from congress over this? >> i think you've got two things at work. one is that the republicans largely agree with the president's targeted killing program, that is to say drone strikes and other ways of killing top targeted terrorists on a very individual basis. and you've got most democrats either agree with the policy or willing to give president of their own party a lot of leash on it and hearing the very far left and far right with concerns and then occasionally some of the folks in the middle expressing concerns and probably not the type of concerns to lead them to stop the president from having the defense team that he wants in place. >> all right. dr. j, j-dog, thank you very

much. >> have fun tonight. >> you, too. >> is it a party? facebook fans have interesting expectations for tonight like ray saying since i doubt the state of the union will call for a-rod to retire i would guess the economy. sorry, roy. i doubt -- >> it says a-rod. >> mine it says a-roid. like us and complete the president's iconic statement. the state of the union is blank. tweet us to share your tos to. up next, are you biassed? no way. right? our next guest says we all are a little bit and still good people. find out how to test your own blind spots next. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year.

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how well do we know ourselves? i know it's existential for the afternoon but sometimes we like to get deep with it. our next guest is a harvard professor saying habits and preferences we learn from a young age create gaps in our conscienceness and those gaps shape our attitudes toward race, gender, sexuality and wage and politics and completely unaware of. she developed a test over 14 million people to help measure stereotyping. we took the test and the results are interesting. one thing we found out, s.e. likes black people. >> loves black people. >> who knew? >> better than anyone else. >> i have scientific proof now. >> joining us is psychologist and co-author of "blind spot." hitting the store today. she was the teacher of the year at yale. she's a professor at harvard. she's the woman. how are you, do doctor? >> hi, toure.

>> okay. so you talk about mind bugs. these autd mattic mental reactions. and social science talking about this sort of thing for a long time. the ways that people can be racist or sexist or homophobic without meaning to. how do we develop the mind bugs in the first place? >> so my colleague tony greenwald and i do really think that we develop them in a couple of different ways. so, the first thing to remember is that our culture, the culture in which we live gives us the content of what our minds know. so if we had to ask the question, what do we know, that stuff comes to us from the outside. i know that more women than men are nursings. i know that more men than women are neuro surgeons. that's not something i was born knowing. that's something i come to learn through life and experience. but our brains are not just simple passive recipients of

that information. they're set up by evolution over millions of years to be the kinds of brains and minds we have today. and those brains and minds have a way of learning the information and rapidly. >> well, doctor, you said that in one of the implicit bias tests you may have uncovered some of the roots of birtherism in this country. explain. >> well, some years ago, i read the story of wen ho lee, an east asian american working at a los allah alamos lab and he was indicted on 59 charges and then were not accurate, having sold secrets to the chinese government and then i asked what if the name were not wen ho lee we robert e. lee, would he have

carried the same burden of suspicion? and that led us to do a bunch of tests in which we measured the strength with which we associate the category that we all love, america, with certain kinds of ethnic groups within this country so how quickly do we associate america with white people and how quickly associate it with east asians and so on and discovered in the course of that research that many of us carry around a very strong association between american and white. to us, that's what it means to be american. and we wondered if something like that might actually understood lie the way in which we might vote. for example, a gorgeous work showing that the strength of which we associate white with america and whether we're likely to vote with mccain or obama and so on and led me in the birther moment to ask the sort of

question whether the birthers and we are all in a sense a little bit birther but some of us have used the power of our conscience minds to tell ourselves that that information simply is not correct. whereas others have not done that and that's really the difference because at level many of us may actually carry around the association -- >> i knew it! >> to be american is white. >> doctor, i wanted to ask you about the test if people go to the site, millions of people have done this. i was confused by it. my colleagues took it and they were getting questions about race and then these sorts of things. i got questions about to you associate this with hair or no hair and then furniture and vehicles and i -- it tells me the conclusion after i took the test is your data suggests no automatic relation with a vehicle of hair an you're not a racist congratulations but what

did i get? what happened to me there? >> yeah. what you got is that you headed off to the site for experts. rather than the site for novices. >> don't tell him that. >> don't tell him that. >> you went off to the site for research rather than the demonstration site. you can take one of about 15 tests that tell you before you start the test that you're about to take a test on race bias or gender stereotype. >> you took the wrong one. >> you're the least racist person i've ever met. >> wow. all right. doctor, thank you for unlocking come of the ways that race is a social construct and not a biological reality. thank you for stopping by. up next, the guests in the gallery. the ordinary americans with prime state of the union seating in the bah balcony and often a shout-out from the president but first a shout-out to the great

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it's called. with the state of the union hours away, a ritual back to the first presidency, like to focus on a practice back only about 30 years or so. that is inviting and showcasing regular americans in the balcony. people who supposedly represent a policy push or part of the administration's agenda. a few going tonight include the parents of a 15-year-old girl killed in a chicago park, 103-year-old woman who waited in line hours to vote and former congresswoman giffords, as well. and this means no disrespect to them, no doubt an honor for them and must be thrilling to see it live, you do have to wonder if the technique is a gimmick to folks and the audience immune to it all and want to back spin on that. >> i want to say i do mean to disrespect ted nugent. >> yes. >> everybody else, true. >> but that is -- i'll get to that in a second. we talk about the evolution of

the rituals of the state of the union. the honored guest, the average citizen guest dating back to 1982 when ronald reagan giving a state of the union and air florida, air florida doesn't exist anymore and crashed in to the potomac and a civilian that saved a lot of people and reagan had him, sat with nancy reagan. he saluted him in the speech and this is a ritual. every year since then, average americans, sometimes heros. i'm sure the guy on the subway tracks and got an invite of bush like in '07. >> sully maybe. >> they're there to help the president tell a story. i do just wonder if this sort of thing in politics at the state of the union address or in a debate in the presidential campaign, a speech, if the audiences are desensitized to the politician saying let me tell you about tom and jane smith and the struggle with high prescription struggles. real people and issues and the technique used so much over 30

years, i wonder if it's lost the impact. tonight the focus is going to be gun violence and krystal, you mentioned the twist is the individual members of congress now are getting in on the act of, well, we have a ticket to give away. we can sit somebody up in the balcony. a republican to invite ted nugent and free publicity for that. see if that's the trend in the future. i covered a state of the union as a congressional reporter. i was up there in the balcony. most interesting thing is the wife of an elderly congressman, republican congressman of florida in the iraq war showed up with a basically pro-war t-shirt and she was seated next to the quaker mother of an anti-war democrat. >> weird. >> very visibly uncomfortable by the seating arrangement. that was the closest thing to fireworks i saw. >> i think to a certain degree you are right, steve, but probably so many politician who is are bad at using that tom and jane from augusta, you know, sort of conceit.

very few politicians are good at it but those that are, are really, really good ate. it's interesting to look back at the guests of state of the unions past because i think it like a sort of pulse of the country. and maybe just a pulse of the country through the eyes of politicians. maybe not even us, but what politicians at the time are thinking the country wants to see from them. for example, there are a lot of shooting victim, gun control advocates who are guests at this state of the union. a number of undocumented immigrants will be invited guests. back in 2008 the list was really interesting. and it sort of was a flashback to what life was like back then. guests of laura bush included a mother from indiana who faced foreclosure on the family's home. that, of course, was the big crisis then. an army staff sergeant seriously wounded in iraq but now home. the mother of a cuban journalist who was held as a political

prisoner, an emergency room nurse, an hiv positive mother from tanzania. the head of the university in afghanistan. a bunch of wounded warriors commission folks. just interesting sort of flashback into the mindset of 2008. >> there's an obvious theater to the state of the union, so i don't mind bringing in regular people to help take these ideas from abstractions to real things. you know, if any issue needs to have human faces put on it, it's immigration. so we're going to see lots of undocumented workers there. i like that. i appreciate that. the ted nugent thing i find to be sort of way over the line, sort ever human middle finger to obama. sort of just an attempt to say just screw you. it's just like the stupid party behavior that jindal was talking about that they have to stop being really sort of inappropriate for tonight. >> yeah. well, i have to say, yes, it's hokey and it's trite and it's been done a million times and i'm sure it has lost some of its

power, but just imagine if you are that 103-year-old woman who waited in line for hours, is now going to get to go to the state of the union. to me that actually is one of the cooler parts is seeing these people who are, quote, unquote, regular americans and the power and impact the event is having on them, and, look, we're human beings. we assimilate information and we think in terms of stories. so even though it is sort of a played out technique, there still is power in having a face to that story and associating that story with a particular policy. so i like it even though it's hokey. i'll be looking forward to seeing the folks that you mentioned except ted nugent. >> well, and so there you go, folks. that is the long version of how ronald reagan is indirectly responsible for ted nugent. anyway, up next, s.e.'s thoughts on the dueling gop responses to the state of the union tonight. how do i do gymnast michaela ma

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they say that if you aren't a liberal when you're young, you don't a heart, and if you aren't a conservative when you're older, you don't have a brain. if republicans want to hold on to that distinction they better get a little smarter. rand paul and marco rubio will

give dueling opposition responses to the president's state of the union address. paul speaking for the tea party and rubio for the gop. the impulse to compete in a marketplace of ideas is actually a good one. i love that the conservative movement encompasses libertarians, moderates, fiscal hawks and values voters and i love that we have different ideas about how to fix the nation's problems. but not when it has the appearance of confusion and division. if paul and rubio were speaking from the same studio as one united voice in opposition to the democrats i'd like this idea a whole lot more. instead of taking this rare opportunity to show our unity, we're choosing instead to highlight our disagreement. exhibit b, karl rove wanting to use his new super pac to weed out strident conservatives which immediately had the deleterious effect of, well, angering strident conservatives. republicans will never win elections and attract new voters if we're constantly trying to

marginalize each other and the voters we already have. and exhibit c, former congressman steve latourette, a republican from ohio, thinks republicans should soften their stance on gun issues and relax their support of the nra to win over more women voters. never mind that there's a strong case to make to women for greater gun rights, not fewer, or that participation in the nra's women on target program shut up 26% in 2012. let's forget about the fact that more registered voters surveyed by quinnipiac say the nra better reflects their views on guns than obama does. and that voters have a higher opinion of the nra than they do hollywood. and let's ignore the numbers that gun ownership in 2011 spiked to record levels not because more men, republicans, or southerners were buying them, but because more women, democrats, and people living in every region of the country but the south were. true story. no, let's take a position that we believe in and a message that works well for conservatives and

change it to try to win voters who are uneasy about gun rights to begin with and who weren't going to vote republican anyway. that makes a ton of sense. if the only way to win new voters is to lose current voters, i'm pretty sure that math isn't going to work out too well for us. we have to take every opportunity we can to agree with one another instead of reveling in the opportunities to disagree. i love the intellectual diversity of our party. let's celebrate it without fetishizing it. that does it for us in the cycle. martin, it's all yours. >> thank you so much. good afternoon. it's tuesday, february 12th, and the president deals with a new threat from north korea just hours before delivering his state of the union address. >> north korea's latest provecation, the reclusive communist country announced that it conducted a third nuclear test. >> north korea's foreign ministry is threatening measures of greater